FN Herstal FNP-45 Review

I went to the weekend to test-fire my girlfriend's birthday present, a lever action Winchester 30-30 and the guy I went with had a new toy I got to play with, a fresh out of the box FNP-45. We put a couple hundred rounds through it, so I figured I'd do a little write up.

First Impressions:
The grip seems huge. Not too terribly surprising since the firearm came with two 14 round mags and a 15 round mag. The grip was my biggest concern, I didn't know if my hand would fit around it well. It was aggressively checkered, so if it fit then the grip would be good. It also comes with an exchangeable back strap, but we stuck to the curved one rather than the flat. I did not expect to like the firearm.

It's also fairly ugly, but in a very businesslike way. It's a firearm and its appearance practically says, "Yes, I'm a firearm. Why do you ask?"

Sights are a fairly standard three dot setup and all controls are ambidextrous and the lower is polymer with a standard accessory rail up front. Nothing too surprising but the controls are a nice touch.

Firing the FNP-45:

Christ on a crutch, this thing is accurate. Upon first picking it up, I was easily able to remove the bull from the target at 10 yards, almost surgically. Recoil was about normal for a large framed pistol, the trigger was crisp with a bit more play than I like up front, but the trigger reset was short with positive feedback when it did reset but not so short that it caused accidental double shots. I had no issues with the grip once I'd gotten a little more used to it. My friend didn't perform as well, but he's got less experience with pistols than I do. My one complaint is that the mags are very very stiff. Straight out of the box it was a chore to load more than 12 rounds. I would imagine that in time they'll loosen up some over time, but once that happens I wonder if the final rounds in the mag will feed properly. 200 rounds later at various ranges with most rounds within 4 inches out to 20 yards and no failures to fire of any type I was certainly pleased with the FNP-45's performance.

Overview:

The FNP-45 appears to be an accurate and reliable large frame pistol with ambidextrous controls and an integrated sight rail. With a price point of $514 - $634 on budsgunshop.com (not sure what the difference between the two is, to be honest) this is very likely going on my buy list.